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I missed the boat on the First Edition of the world’s most popular fantasy role-playing game, having gotten into it a few years into Second Edition. As such, I never quite got what the thief-acrobat was all about, save for a vague idea that it was a more acrobatic version of the normal thief. Now I play Pathfinder, where the thief is called the rogue, Acrobatics is a skill, and LPJ Design has just released Lost Classes of Fantasy: Thief Acrobat in what I assume is a thematic (rather than literal) update for the old 1E class. So, let’s look under the hood.
The PDF is nine pages long, counting six for the class itself, one for the OGL, and two for a character sheet that’s included also. Save for the graphic on the first page, there’s no art here (notwithstanding the company logo on the character sheet), though there are grey borders along the top and bottom of each page; hence, printing this won’t be a problem. I’m always a fan of bookmarks, and initially was pleasantly surprised to s ... [read full review]
Rating:  [3 of 5 Stars!] |
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Ecology articles are a classic staple of the world’s most popular fantasy role-playing game. Of those, I think that perhaps the best ones are those that explain not just the life-cycles and thought processes of their featured creature, but go one step further in tying a creature in with another in an unexpected way. For example, I once read an ecology about the phantom fungus (a rather silly creature by itself) that made it a part of the fungal order controlled by none other than the mi-go. That knocked my socks off. It’s that same kind of re-examining that Darkness Without Form: Secrets of the Mimic attempts to evoke.
A short PDF at twenty-four pages, Darkness Without Form is quite artistic. Having not only full bookmarks, each page has a fairly elaborate pair of borders along the top and bottom, looking like swirling masses of protoplasm. Several interior illustrations, both in color and black and white, also adorn the book. I want to take a moment to call out a great kudos on the ... [read full review]
Rating:  [5 of 5 Stars!] |
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Fairy tales are one of the building blocks of modern culture, in that they’re among the first stories we learn as children, and which usually have a lesson in them that helps to shape us into who we are. Also like building blocks, they quickly become so commonplace that they’re entirely overlooked by everyone – can you remember the last time you sat down and read (or had read to you), or even just thought about, the tale of Hansel and Gretel? Now imagine that you suddenly, while taking a shortcut through a wooded area, found yourself in front of a gingerbread house. That’s the sort of scenario that Once Upon A Time: A Guide to Fairy Tales brings to your Modern d20 game.
A forty-two page book, the PDF of Once Upon A Time is formatted nicely, containing nested bookmarks and having copy and pasting enabled. The book is fairly spartan in terms of decoration, having only a few color illustrations scattered throughout its pages. Beyond those, there are no interior decorations, meaning tha ... [read full review]
Rating:  [4 of 5 Stars!] |
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As role-players, we tend to be neophiles. We are excited by that which is new and different; a new sourcebook, a new campaign setting, or even a new race are all seen as untapped possibilities which widen the pool of what we can draw on for our game and thus make it better. Alluria Publishing’s Remarkable Races: Pathway to Adventure plays right into that, with each product introducing a new race that’s markedly different in its own way. This is especially true for The Oakling, a product detailing a race of tree-people.
Usually, I like to review the technical aspects of a PDF product up front before I delve into the substance of what’s written there. In this case, I can’t help but blur the line, but I’ll get to that in a moment. Although short at thirteen pages, full bookmarks have been provided, which is nice. There is no printer-friendly version, but for a book this short it’s probably silly to have one.
It was the artwork, however, that stopped me cold. Not because it was bad – ... [read full review]
Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!] |
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The best products are those that achieve a balance between the flavor text (the fluff) and the mechanics of the game system (the crunch). The crunch acts as the framework for how the thing presented will function in your game, with the fluff making it evocative and interesting. It’s an area that Rite Publishing specializes in; but sometimes errors slip in – the crunch may have errors, or the fluff may not sync up with the mechanics perfectly. Unfortunately, both of those happen in The Hero’s Bastard, marring an otherwise great product for your Pathfinder game.
The book is a short one, being eight pages long and focusing on a single monster. Despite its brevity, however, it uses bookmarks, which is a pleasant surprise. The art is (with the exception of the borders on the cover) all black and white, with borders around the pages.
The book opens with the stats for the morekareth (which means “the hero’s bastard” in a game language), a CR 12 monster. Unfortunately, I started seeing ... [read full review]
Rating: [4 of 5 Stars!] |
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I’m not sure why, but it’s a truism that people like myself (nerds/geeks/gamers) love lists. We’re never so happy as when we’ve created or acquired a large collection of information, especially in a cross-indexed, easy to reference form. Making sense of things and having data on hand is satisfying on a truly visceral level. The fact that the information itself is useful and/or fun is a bonus. Given all of that, it should be no surprise that I immediately took to Actual Factual: Dracula – A Compendium of Vampires.
From a technical perspective, the book is presented quite nicely. Almost five hundred pages long, the PDF is quite small in size. Presumably this is due to the small amount of artwork. There are only a handful of pictures here, all of them black and white and found at the beginning of each alphabetical chapter; it should be noted that the cover displayed on the product page isn’t found in the PDF of the book, however. I also wished that bookmarks had been used, as that woul ... [read full review]
Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!] |
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By and large I’m a fan of Pathfinder, but even I have to admit that they missed out on some things. Even overlooking the quagmire that is the debate of what should or shouldn’t have been tweaked, some things just seem like a missed opportunity, with Knowledge tables for what characters know about monsters being one of them. After all, that’s been pretty well integrated into the D&D game over the last several years, so why it was ignored here is beyond me. Of course, Paizo’s oversight is 4 Winds Fantasy Gaming’s opportunity, and thus we have the latest in the GM’s Aid Series: Pathfinder RPG Monster Knowledge Cards.
For those who don’t know (and didn’t read the product page before clicking on this review), this product is a PDF where each page has several cards, one for each monster. Each card has an escalating list of Knowledge DCs, and making a check at or above the listed DC grants you the listed information about a monster, along with all of the information for lower DCs as well. ... [read full review]
Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!] |
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The best opening is one that immediately grabs people’s attention. How it does so is less important than whether or not it does so at all; if you can get eyes on you, then you’re doing fine. A prime example of this is a comic book with the title “Jesus Hates Zombies.” The fact that it then throws in “Featuring Lincoln Hates Werewolves” is almost funny for how for unnecessary it is – after telling us that this book is about Jesus hating the walking dead, do you really need to follow it up with something else?
Curious, I took the next logical step in investigating what this comic was all about, and downloaded the preview on its sales page. On the first page, Jesus sits brooding on a rooftop in a manner that reminiscent of Batman as he inner-monologues. “The first time I came down here it was to save your souls…” he grimly narrates as he readies a baseball bat, “this time I’m here to save your asses.”
One page in, and I knew I had to read the rest of this comic.
Jesus Hate Zombie ... [read full review]
Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!] |
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There’s an old saying that you only have one chance to make a first impression. While it sounds trite, it lays out a much more fundamental principle: that looks are important. While the substance of a thing – its modularity, usefulness, and originality – are important, these qualities all suffer if the presentation is poor, as they become hard to read, hard to reference, and otherwise hard to make use of. It’s a pity when this happens to a good supplement, as it did with The Gift, a Pathfinder adventure/sourcebook from Dementia Five Publishing.
It starts with the technical presentation. The PDF that I looked at had no bookmarks, which is something I think all but the briefest of PDFs should have. There was also no printer-friendly version, again something I think should be included just as a courtesy for people who care to print their materials. Having said that, the art here is not to be underestimated, with a liberal mix of full color and black and white pieces, along with a numbe ... [read full review]
Rating: [3 of 5 Stars!] |
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Of all the changes Pathfinder introduced to the 3.5 rules set, sorcerer bloodlines are my most favorite. Doing so not only made one of the most boring classes much more interesting, but took a minor note in their background fluff and put it squarely in the spotlight. Now, the question of what in the sorcerer’s history grants him his power is at the front and center of who the character is. But of course, the imagination rails against being confined to merely the ten choices in the Pathfinder Core Rulebook. Surely there are more exotic things that can grant a sorcerer magical power? And indeed there are, and they’re to be found in the first volume of Reality Deviant Publication’s Class Options series, aptly titled Sorcerer Bloodlines.
The book is a short one, but in spite of that nicely bookmarks everything within it. Except for the cover, there’s no other art to be found here save for one illustration near the end. Brown borders go along the top and bottom of each page, along with v ... [read full review]
Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!] |
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Most spellcasting classes in 3.5 have their spells granted to them via an innate connection of some sort. Divine spellcasters receive their spells from their god, sorcerers gain them from their blood connection, and bards…don’t really count. But wizards have to earn their spells, either finding creating new magic themselves in a long, expensive, and dangerous process, or go out and try to locate long-lost spell fragments that they pore over in hopes of deciphering and comprehending. Except, not really. They actually just gain two new spells per level, plus whatever spellbooks and scrolls the DM throws at them. That’s the problem that The Way of the Magus: On Language and Research from Wild Hunt Studio tries to fix.
From a technical standpoint, the PDF has everything it should. Beyond the table of contents, there are full bookmarks with nesting, there’s character-recognition, and copy-and-pasting is enabled. The book’s interior art is fairly sparse, and all black and white, with blac ... [read full review]
Rating: [4 of 5 Stars!] |
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Magic in 3.5 is devoid of a lot of the grittier aspects of sorcery that we often see in classic fantasy tales. Absent is the use of blood sacrifices or dangerous drugs as necessary components to making spells work, or even as additives to give magic an extra boost. On Lotus Magic, part of Wild Hunt Studio's The Way of the Magus line of products, addresses the idea of spell-enhancing drugs, however, and presents several special plants with a thaumaturgical effect.
On Lotus Magic is a fairly short book, being fifteen pages long. Despite this, it has full bookmarks, which is a plus, and has copy and paste enabled. While the book has no illustrations per se, the pages are all gray-green and have stylized plant imagery in the background, which I found makes for very pleasant reading.
The book opens by giving an overview of the lotus flowers, alluding to in-game attitudes that are easily imported to your campaign, such as how the drugs of it are illegal, and are usually used in conjunc ... [read full review]
Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!] |
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When it comes to major hazards that an enterprising GM can fill a dungeon with, it’s easy to find sourcebooks filled with the obvious answers. Folios of new monsters top the list, with books of wicked new spells (all the better to have NPCs cast on your heroes) following closely behind. Traps, however, rarely get this sort of attention, and that’s a shame because traps can be some of the worst threats a character can face; this is especially true regarding purely mechanical traps – in a world where monsters can morph into furniture, or a long-cast magic spell can suddenly turn you into ashes, it’s easy to forget that a well-designed series of pulleys, chains, and a blade or two can quickly bring severe misfortune to a character. If you’re looking for something along those lines, then look no further, as 14 Traps, from Scavenger Studios, delivers on that score.
Before we go any further, let’s examine the technical workings of this nefarious libram. Eighteen pages long, the PDF does h ... [read full review]
Rating: [5 of 5 Stars!] |
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I’ve never quite known what to make of “location sourcebooks” for RPGs. These are the books that describe a single location in great detail, similar to how you’d write up a dungeon for an adventure; at the same time though, it’s to flesh out your campaign world and add extra options, like a supplement. At their best, these combine features from both types of books into a cohesive whole that can serve as whatever you need it to, but if not done correctly they fail to live up to either end of the spectrum. It’s with that thought in mind that I turned my attention to the Abbey of the Golden Sparrow, by Tricky Owlbear Publishing.
As the title indicates, this book is based around a monastic order headquartered in the eponymous abbey. Located on a mountaintop, the monks there follow an air/cold-themed discipline, and follow a peaceful tradition of seeking enlightenment while aiding the goodly peoples near them, battling local goblin tribes, and guarding a powerful magic item of chaos.
... [read full review]
Rating: [4 of 5 Stars!] |
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Context is everything, at least in a role-playing game. What’s standard fare in one game is a rare and wondrous thing in another, and can be completely game-breaking in a third. This, then, means that almost anything has untapped potential for use in other types of games, if you’re willing to put it in a game different from where it was originally intended to be used. That’s the theory behind Mutant Menaces I, from Cybertaur Conspiraces.
Mutant Menaces is a collection of monsters from the Fantasy d20 SRD, put into a Modern d20 context. The book’s introduction makes it clear that the idea is, as described above, that these monsters in a Modern setting makes them an entirely different sort of encounter than they are in a Fantasy game. And if you stop to think about it, it’s true. After all, in modern monster-hunting shows like The X-Files or Supernatural, an entire adventure can revolve around a single monster, with the heroes investigating what it is/how to kill it, hunting it down, ... [read full review]
Rating: [4 of 5 Stars!] |
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![techNO*EL, Special Edition [BUNDLE]](images/636/65803-thumb80.jpg "techNO*EL, Special Edition [BUNDLE]")
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